


tell me it's the perfect time

by seabent



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 08:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16615226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabent/pseuds/seabent
Summary: It’s enough, Yuzu thinks. He won’t let himself want this, want Javi, too. He’s greedy enough already.





	tell me it's the perfect time

After Shanghai, things aren’t strained, exactly, but they are different. There’s a barely-there tension in the air, the first days he and Javi share back at the club, after the summer. It’s probably not just him, Yuzu knows, but he’s certainly not helping with the way his emotions sit so close to the surface these days, half-threatening to spill over any given moment he and Javi cross paths or lock eyes on the ice. 

It would be less of a problem, maybe, if it weren’t for the fact that Yuzu can’t quite understand what he’s feeling at all _._ The heavy sting of regret and frustration and resentment tangled with pride and happiness for Javi, a new-found appreciation for Javi’s grace in defeat and a new understanding of Javi as a rival, a real one, who can beat him given even half a chance – these are the feelings that Yuzu has identified, that he knows he can swallow, given time. But they’re not the whole story. Yuzu knows it’s not even being back at the club, the spectre of another season suddenly looming large. It had started after Shanghai, but it had persisted throughout the summer shows, where it had become a struggle, suddenly, to remember how their easy camaraderie used to work. Every teasing conversation, every bit of laughter shared, every familiar hug and touch suddenly leaving Yuzu feeling off-kilter, off-axis, fraught with a new significance that he couldn’t understand.

A week or so after their training resumes in earnest, Yuzu falls spectacularly on a quad salchow, the kind of fall he used to have when he was still just pushing himself into the jump almost at random, no clear idea in his mind of how he would be landing it. He pushes himself up from his sprawl to sit on the ice, letting himself catch his breath, concentrating on thinking about how he’d pushed off with his edge from the ice, not letting his frustration rise. Someone glides to a stop beside him, and Yuzu knows without looking that it’s Javi. His throat goes tight, _again,_ and he steels himself before looking up.

Javi looks the same as always, if a little tired from the morning start, his eyes kind above a small smile. He offers his hand to Yuzu wordlessly, and Yuzu takes it, letting Javi heave him up.

“You okay?” Javi asks, when Yuzu doesn’t thank him, or skate off. Yuzu doesn’t answer, looking down at the ice as he pretends to dust himself off, avoiding Javi’s eyes.

“Hey,” Javi says, and then repeats it, slinging an arm across Yuzu’s shoulder. Yuzu doesn’t flinch away – he never wants to, no matter how skittish around Javi he feels these days. Javi gives him a little shake, and Yuzu leans into him, just trying not to think. “You can do it. It’s easy.”

Javi skates away, giving him a big, exaggerated smile, then curves into his familiar entry and lands a perfect quad sal, the kind Yuzu chased across an ocean. He hoots after landing, flinging his hands to the side as he skates back towards Yuzu, showboating. Yuzu’s smiling now, despite all the strangeness. He can’t help it.

“Javi not make me feel better,” he says, fake-petulant. 

Javi shrugs, putting both hands on Yuzu’s hips to turn him around and push him off. “Come on. Your turn again.”

Yuzu lands it of course, this time, with the image of Javi’s jump in his mind. It’s smooth as butter, his best one all week. Javi hoots for him as well, and he’s grinning even as Tracy tells him to shut up and get back to work. Warmth spreads all over Yuzu then, something pulling in his chest as Javi shrugs and begins working through the first part of his choreography again, giving Yuzu a thumbs-up as he starts. 

It’s then that Yuzu recognizes, suddenly, what this particular shift, tangled up in all the other complicated realignments in their relationship, must be. It’s _desire,_ unbidden, somehow more heavy-duty and less fleeting than a crush. Mutual admiration and easy friendship has tipped into something else: Yuzu wants Javi, and the certainty of the knowledge feels like swallowing a stone, unmistakable. Yuzu has always known himself better than anyone. 

As the session ends, Javi passes him on the way to the showers, squeezing Yuzu’s shoulder in passing. Yuzu smiles, waving a hand in goodbye. Same as always.

Now that he knows what he’s feeling, Yuzu feels more settled, in control. He’s good at setting the parameters that his mind runs down, ignoring anything – the sharp new pain of an aggravated old injury, the fear of falling, the risk of disappointing everyone who’s supported him, the pressure of an entire nation – which threatens to unbalance him.

And Yuzu knows himself well enough to recognise that his desire is also greed – just another thing that all of him _wants,_ but doesn’t deserve. He thinks of himself standing under the lights on the podium in Shanghai, a step below Javi, and tells himself that he wants to win more, that he still wants to win more than anything. It’s _that_ desire which has carved itself white-hot through his entire life, which took him halfway across the world from everything comforting and familiar, which has always pushed everything else into the background. It’s enough, Yuzu thinks. He won’t let himself want this, want Javi, too. He’s greedy enough already.

*

Yuzu doesn’t think about it, in the months and the years that follow. It’s in the periphery, most of the time, an undercurrent to the shifting tides of their relationship, as wins and losses stack up on both sides of the ledger. The months after Boston are hard, Yuzu plagued by injury and still sick with bitterness, a spiralling frustration that no amount of mental self-control can beat back. Everything is a jumble, Yuzu’s focus shot, and he can hardly tell whether he wants to hit Javi in the face or cling to him. If he can’t win, and this is the only time he’s truly doubted it, then let him have this instead, except that this, except that _Javi,_ searingly brilliant when Yuzu least expects it, is why he didn’t win in the first place. He can’t square this circle and he only knows to pull away and withdraw, shrugging off Javi’s abortive attempts to joke around, flinching away from his touch.

There are the other times too, weeks at a stretch where they seem to be touching every hour they share the ice, as close as they’ve ever been, Javi’s hand lingering at his waist longer than necessary, surely. There are the times where Javi, still, after years of rejections, will ask Yuzu to join him for dinner after a show, to come over to play video games at his apartment or in his hotel room, voice light but eyes serious and Yuzu will think he’s not mistaking that the invitations are meant as something more. Those are the times where Yuzu almost lets himself think: what if? What if he could have this too?

But Yuzu knows also that he’s always wanted more than he can have, and so he always demurs, the _maybe next time_ a familiar and well-understood indefinite deferral. If it feels like a sacrifice, Yuzu knows it’s only one of so many made, by his mother, by his family, by so many others, for the sake of his skating, that Yuzu tells himself it barely counts at all.  

*

Javi is the one who suggests training in separate rinks in the summer after Helsinki. It’s both all about him and not about him at all, Yuzu knows, so he doesn’t let the sting show. Javi has never begrudged Yuzu his own space, and Yuzu can return the favour, in this, if not in other ways.

When all is said and done, it’s late January, after Europeans, by the time they share the ice again, alone. If Yuzu’s pulse is thumping, blood hot beneath his skin, he can tell himself that it’s the countdown to the Olympics, the vanishing days until he stands on the ice in Pyeongchang.

They barely talk, the entire session, just nodding and taking instruction in turn before heading back onto the ice. Yuzu’s jumping only triples, and his ankle still throbs, but he wipes his mind clear of that as he skates, concentrating on the turns, every motion familiar, second-nature. Javi’s quad sal has been giving him trouble for a while now, Yuzu knows, and Yuzu’s eyes track him as he stumbles, as he pops, as he falls. If he’s watching closely, Yuzu tells himself, it’s only what any competitor would do. Besides, he can feel Javi’s eyes on him too, lingering.

In the change-room, Yuzu sits on the bench, towelling off his hair when Javi comes by, ready to leave. Javi pauses in front of him.

“It was good, to be with you on the ice again,” Javi says, smile neither easy nor uncomplicated, but sweet all the same. He pauses, a little, cocks his head, hesitating, before cupping the side of Yuzu’s face in one hand, thumb brushing briefly over his cheek. It’s a gesture familiar from competitions, from the rush and roar of the aftermath of jumps landed in front of a crowd. They don’t touch like this, usually, at the club. They haven’t touched like this in months. Javi repeats himself. “It was good.”

Even after all this time, there’s something surprising about Javi’s grace, his kindness. Longing cuts through Yuzu, sharp. 

“For me, too. Better, together,” he says, and leaves it at that, smiling and waving with both hands as Javi heads to the door.

Yuzu leans back against the change-room wall as the door thumps closed. He closes his eyes, thinks of his jumps.

* 

In Pyeongchang, victory feels like absolution.

Just like Sochi: it’s a blur, the deafening lights and blinding noise, the weight around his neck, the colour gold. Different to Sochi: his happiness, incandescent and obliviating, the scorchingly sweet satisfaction of having _earned_ it, and Javi, by his side in the green room, beside the rink, on the podium, with the tension gone from his shoulders.

Javi, in a shadowed corridor after the gala, having waited for Yuzu to leave the ice. 

Yuzu reaches for him, and they hug, easily, for what must be the hundredth time this week, the feeling familiar from a thousand times before. Yuzu breathes in once, deep, and doesn’t think before he speaks.

“I wanting this, always. For you, for us,” Yuzu says, steadily, and he can feel Javi’s hands tightening on his back. 

“Me too,” says Javi, barely a whisper into his ear. “For us.” Yuzu doesn’t twist away as Javi brushes a dry kiss against his cheek.

Someone is tapping on Yuzu’s shoulder as soon as they step away from each other, and Javi nods at him, smile rueful, as he turns to walk down the corridor.

Greedy, Yuzu thinks, but only for a moment. It’s not true anyway, not anymore. _Me too,_ Javi had said. _For us._ The blood is roaring in his ears.

*

They don’t see each other again in Pyeongchang, and the weeks after that are a manic crush of meetings and media commitments and physiotherapy in tightly scheduled blocks, the days rushing by. It’s already nearing mid-March by the time Yuzu has space to breathe, a week to spend at home that his mother’s careful planning has allowed for.

He busies himself the first two days visiting relatives and his old coaches, meeting Saya’s new boyfriend. Then, sitting in the back of the car as his father drives home, he unlocks his phone and sends Javi a message. 

_Are you in Toronto? Can I come to visit you?_

The reply comes later that evening, as Yuzu’s getting ready for bed.

_Hey Yuzu, yeah I’m in Toronto. I thought you were still in Japan?_

Yuzu types back: _I am. Can I go to your place?_

There’s a pause, longer, before Javi’s reply. _Sure. Let me know when your flight arrives. If you’re on your own, I can meet you at the airport?_

_If you’re on your own._ It’s a question on its own, skirting delicately around the most obvious one, careful not to probe. Javi is being accommodating, as always, the way he’s always made room for Yuzu, at his rink and with his coach, in the harshness of defeat and in the afterglow of victory.

_Yes, coming alone. Ok, I see Javi soon!_

Yuzu puts his phone down on the nightstand and exhales, before padding downstairs to talk to his mother. 

* 

They hug, as usual, at the airport, Javi’s stubbled cheek brushing against his own. Yuzu’s carrying just a weekend bag, packed thoughtlessly in half an hour. No skates, no Pooh-san, no mother or manager or entourage. Yuzu came alone. He trusts Javi to read between the lines. His hair feels greasy from the flight.

Javi’s hands brush against his as he takes Yuzu’s bag from him against Yuzu’s half-hearted protests on the walk to the car. Their chatter is normal, genial, as if they were just catching up at the rink after one of them had returned from a competition. If Javi’s nervous, he doesn’t show it. Yuzu settles into their easy intimacy, warmth curling at the pit of his stomach.

Javi’s apartment has a warm, lived-in clutter, which Yuzu expected, and a stack of as-yet empty moving boxes piled next to the door, which he didn’t. Javi notices him looking, eyes assessing, and says casually, “Don’t cry again on me, now.”

Yuzu huffs, surprised into laughter. “I’m not. No crying.”

Javi smiles, broad. “Good.” He adds, after a second, considering, “The landlord – the person I’m renting from – decided to sell the apartment, so I have to move out, actually, in a month. I’ll take some things back to Spain, leave most of it in storage here. After that, I’m still… figuring it out.” Yuzu nods.

Effie comes out from the bedroom then to prowl between Javi’s legs. She’s affectionate, coming up to Yuzu and purring approvingly as Yuzu crouches down to scratch her behind her ears.

“Kawaii,” murmurs Yuzu under his breath, and hears Javi behind him imitate him, in a _much_ higher pitch, for all his trouble. “ _Hey.”_ He turns and swings an arm loosely at Javi, who bats it away with an exaggerated grunt, and then they’re standing facing one another, grinning.

The moment stretches – not awkward, but pregnant with the words they’ve left unspoken. Why Yuzu is here, what they’ve stepped around delicately for years, all the kindling between them ready to be set aflame, now, with the Olympics behind them, with other dreams secured.

“I’m really happy you’re here, Yuzu,” Javi says, slow and halting, head ducked. Yuzu knows Javi is gently knocking the ball back into his court, giving Yuzu the space to bow out of this, if he wants. It’s a light enough comment that Yuzu could laugh in reply, move to sit on the couch and pretend that playing video games in Javi’s apartment is what he flew twelve hours for. But that’s not what either of them want, and Yuzu is ready, finally, to say so.

Being in receipt of Javier’s generosity had always felt a little unkind _,_ in its own way, when they were competing, taking without giving. Here, now, Yuzu can take what Javi offers without hesitation. Here, now, he can give back, too, with everything he has. Javi has wanted, too.  

Yuzu steps towards him, watches as Javi’s gaze comes to his face, dropping to his lips before meeting his eyes. They’re standing toe to toe, close enough to count each other’s eyelashes. Yuzu feels his own desire unfurling deep inside, the way he’d never let it before. He puts his hands on either side of Javi’s face, cupping his cheeks, rubbing his thumbs over the stubble. Javi’s cheeks are warm. Javi blinks, slow, as they touch, then opens his eyes again, watching Yuzu steadily, his exhales through parted lips a little shallow.

“Can I kiss you?” Yuzu asks.

“Please,” says Javi, voice rough.

When Yuzu bends forward to kiss him, it almost feels like he’s done it a thousand times before. Being this close to Javi, their bodies pressed against one another, hearing Javi’s faint exhales and smelling the familiar scent of his cologne – if he closes his eyes, he could be a hundred different places in their shared past. But Yuzu’s _here,_ now, in Javi’s messy apartment where he’s never been before, and he doesn’t want to close his eyes. Kissing Javi almost feels familiar, if not for the fact that Yuzu knows with a sharp aching clarity that he’s never been this happy before.

*

The next morning, they decide (or more accurately, Yuzu decides) to take the early bus to the rink, waiting together on the sidewalk in the still frigid early spring air. Javi isn’t wearing a nearly thick enough coat, and he’s not wearing gloves either, alternating between squirrelling his hands into his pockets and bringing them up to his mouth to furiously puff white clouds of warm breath into them. After a few minutes, Yuzu peels off his own gloves and wordlessly holds them out.

“Oh. Thanks.” There’s a sheepish edge to Javi’s smile that makes him look younger, sweeter.

“No problem.” Yuzu enunciates the words as carefully as he can, rounding his mouth over the _r_ in _problem._ He can tell Javi notices.

Javi shifts closer to him on the sidewalk after that, and squeezes Yuzu’s bare left hand in his newly-gloved right for a second, one thumb running quickly over another.

The bus is overcrowded and overwarm, and they both stay standing the first few times the bus lurches to a stop. Eventually, a lady slips off at her stop, leaving an empty seat next to where Javi stands. Javi taps Yuzu on the shoulder, nods at the space.

Yuzu shakes his head. “Javi, you sit. You are old man.”

Javi raises his eyebrows, shrugging an _if you insist_ shrug as he takes the seat. Yuzu sidles up the aisle, pressing closer until Javi’s shoulder is flush against the front of his thigh. He watches the dimly familiar shapes of Toronto suburbia pass them by through the condensation on the windows. With practiced, reflexive self-control, he stops himself from parsing his own emotions, from thinking about the night before, about heat and tenderness, bare skin against skin and the dimly lit shape of Javi’s stubbled jaw. Don’t think about it, the way it’s always been when something looms close, its shadow already overwhelming. 

Then Javi takes Yuzu’s free hand, the one not wrapped around the bus pole but hanging limply at his side, and brings it up to his lips, pressing a closed-mouth kiss to the back of his bare hand, slow. He’s still wearing Yuzu’s gloves. He flicks his eyes up to meet Yuzu’s gaze, smiling, then flips Yuzu’s hand to place another kiss on his palm.

Yuzu feels something hot and sweet and sharp twist inside him, and is barely startled to realise that the sensation is already both familiar and essential. He doesn’t know how he managed to go all those years without.

*

There’s an even earlier morning stroking class letting out as they trundle into the rink, and they wave to the familiar faces on the way to the change rooms. There are a few raised eyebrows at Yuzu’s presence, but no questions, even as Yuzu picks through the club’s supply of battered spare skates. 

Javi’s already on the ice, otherwise empty for the moment, as Yuzu approaches, slipping the unfamiliar guards off the borrowed blades. He flicks his eyes down towards Yuzu’s ankle, gaze questioning.  

“It’s fine,” says Yuzu, forestalling the question. “No jumps.”

“Okay,” replies Javi with an easy smile, a shrug lifting and dropping one shoulder. “Come on then.”

He takes both of Yuzu’s hands in his and pulls Yuzu onto the ice, skating backwards. Yuzu lets himself be pulled for a moment, as though he doesn’t know what to do with his limbs, before letting go of Javi’s hands and stroking slowly, matching Javi’s pace. They’re facing each other as they move together across the ice, slow but close, as though invisibly linked.

“So,” Javi begins, then falters, his eyes dropping from Yuzu’s face to the ice. There’s the faintest blush of red across the top of his cheeks.

“Mm?”

“I’ll be in Japan next month, for some shows.” 

“I know,” says Yuzu, patient. Yuzu will be at a couple of those shows, too.

“Then afterwards, I don’t have anything booked so I’m thinking of taking some time off. To think about the future.”

“I thinking, Javi will be doing nothing. At beach.”

Javi’s eyes flick back to meet his as he laughs a small, surprised laugh, which gives Yuzu a familiar burst of pleasure. Yuzu answers him with a grin before coming to a stop and turning around, dropping his back low in a loose approximation of a speed skater’s start and pushing off. He picks up more and more speed as he pushes around the rink, frivolous and inefficient, his blades sloppy across the ice. Behind him, he can hear Javi keeping pace, the steady slide of his skates keeping him well within conversational distance.

Yuzu glances behind him. Javi’s focused as he skates but smiling, a little helplessly, as he catches Yuzu’s eye. He turns back around. “I’m right?” Yuzu asks, loud enough to be heard. 

Javi huffs a laugh. “You’re probably right. But Yuzu, I was thinking. For a week, if you find the time. Will you come to Spain?”

It’s at that exact moment when Yuzu’s borrowed blades seem to catch on the unsmoothed ice while he’s going just too fast to course correct, and he slides out of control, body suddenly onto the ice and gliding to a firm stop at the edge of the rink. He’s laughing at the stupidity of it, pulling himself up into a sitting position quickly enough to catch the tiny crease of concern between Javi’s eyes vanish at the sound of his laughter. 

Javi glides to a halt in front of him and regards him from above, eyes dark and smiling. “You know, only if you want to,” he says, dry, and offers his hand to help Yuzu up.

“Hm,” Yuzu hums, non-committal. His cheeks feel numb from smiling. He lets Javi pull him up, the motion as familiar as anything. Then, even after he’s upright, he doesn’t let Javi’s hand go. Instead, Yuzu leans in to kiss him, slow, lets that do the answering for him.

**Author's Note:**

> this is probably going to be the only fic i finish for the next ten years (one fic per decade is my current rate of output) and it's this weirdly sexless sap, started right after the olympics and then ignored for months until seeing yuzu at gp helsinki sent me down this hell path again <3 
> 
> title from champagne coast by blood orange.


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